An age-old motif permeates numerous 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches back in time to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to smear Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro squandering tens of millions to throw the heroes into a monster-filled arena to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people enduring abject destitution, while employing AI forgeries and a sophisticated smear campaign to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists reside in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them from their homes and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, sets the scrappy residents of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who live in opulent gleaming towers floating overhead. Remarkably, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to bring about planetary doom — for his own profit, naturally.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a run of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding appetite for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his always poor iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is contrary to core morality, and exalt the defusing, routing, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Alters Little
However, inexplicably, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion elected officials react to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. But the headlines makes it obvious regularly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously equate riches with smartness and social worth, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies promoting the reverse.
If anything, it looks as though the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that gets in the way of substantive reform. Given a regular dose of predominantly triumphant fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that the system works, and that plucky heroes will weed out any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more specific, and apparently more fatal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, possibly since it’s become so clear that rich people function with their own legal rules, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exceptions
A few stories differ, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
